What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution 61 against his will. Surely eternal sin can only be followed by eternal retribution; for, if a man deliberately chooses to be ruled by sin, he must inevitably be ruined by it. One never hears of the doctrine of final restoration being applied to the devil and his angels, but why not? If the answer is, “Because they cannot and will not repent,” the same is surely true of many human beings. Not only is there no vestige of foundation in our Lord's words for the doctrine of universalism, there is also no shadow of a suggestion of any restoration of the wicked hereafter. So far from this being the case, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus rings the death knell of any such hope, Abraham is there represented as saying to Dives: “Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us” (Luke 16:26). That “fixed gulf” is surely a yawning chasm too deep to be filled up, and oo wide to be bridged over; and the awful description of hell by the poet Milton, in “Paradise Lost”, remains sadly true: , | j I t (j
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“Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell; hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end.” 4 .
W hat did christ teach as to the causes of future retribution ? A careful study of our Lord’s words show that there are two primary causes, namely, deliberate unbelief and wilful rejection of Him; and surely these are but different aspects of the same sin. In Matt. 8:12, it was the contrast between the faith of the Gentile centurion and the unbelief of the Jewish nation which drew from His lips the solemn words: “The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness;” while, in chapter 23 the awful denunciation in verse 33 is followed by the sad lamentation: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
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